The American Association of Architects (AIA) has published form construction documents since 1888. Approximately every ten years, the AIA issues revisions to its form documents that comprise one of the most popular and commonly used sets of construction documents in the industry. Earlier this year, the AIA issued revisions to eleven of its forms and further anticipates that an additional eighteen forms and agree­ments will be released in the fall of 2017.

This article provides a general overview of the changes to the A201, A101, A102, and A103 documents. A201 contains the gen­eral conditions for owner-contractor agree­ments; A101 is the standard form agreement between owners and contractors on stipu­lated sum contracts; A102 is the standard form agreement between owners and con­tractors, where basis of payment is cost of work plus a fee with a guaranteed maxi­mum price; and A103 is the standard form agreement between owners and contractors, where basis of payment is cost of work plus a fee without a guaranteed maximum price. This article also addresses two exhibits— the Insurance Exhibit and the Sustainable Project Exhibit. While the following arti­cle does not exhaustively cover all of the re­cent updates to the AIA contract documents, the article provides a general understand­ing of the major changes made to the AIA contracts so that you are mindful of these changes when using these contracts in your day-to-day operation.